A Golden Team's Sole Survivor

"When the Cubs came out on the field before the first game, Ruth called them cheapskates and nickel squeezers," says Koenig. "All the Yankees were pulling for me."

In the Series opener, Koenig tripled off Red Ruffing, but injured his hand sliding into third. He didn't come to bat again in the Series, but watched in Game 3 when Ruth pointed—did he or didn't he?—to the centerfield fence before homering off Charlie Root.

"I get more letters about that than anything else," Koenig says. "I tell people that I give Ruth the benefit of the doubt. But I really think he raised his hand to acknowledge that he had two strikes, or one strike left.

"Of course, I wouldn't put it past Ruth to do something like that. Lots of times, he'd say, 'I feel good today. I think I'll hit a home run.' And, by golly, he did."

So Koenig neither documents nor denies Ruth's "called shot." But that home run and Ruth's 60th five years earlier linked Koenig to the legend of George Herman Ruth.

"I was in on a couple of important things," Koenig says, looking back. "Otherwise, no one would have heard of me."

Koenig passed up a chance to be part of a third historic baseball event, one in which Ruth wasn't involved. The Cincinnati Reds, for whom Koenig played in 1934, became the first major league team to travel by airplane.

"Jim Bottomley and I refused to fly," he says. "We took the train."

Koenig lasted 11 years in the big leagues, batting .279 lifetime. His final two seasons, with the New York Giants in 1935 and '36, were his unhappiest. "The Giants had a midnight curfew. That was brutal," he says. "If you wanted to eat out, you had to get permission from Bill Terry, the player-manager. I didn't like Terry. If he had a bad day at the plate, he wouldn't talk to you. If the pitchers, like Hal Schumacher, had a bad day, he would treat them awful.

"I'll tell you, I never had a better manager than Huggins. And I never got along better with any team than I did with the Yankees. They all pulled together. A wonderful team."